Teach What You Know, Know What You Teach
by widdlewed
Summary: Cross-posted from Tumblr and AO3. Bill saw natural talent in the Pine Tree. He decides to alter his plans. Mentor!Bill and Apprentice!Dipper. One-shot. Set in Season 1


From Tumblr, a small one-shot written for Starfleetrambo. They had wanted a Mentor!Bill and Apprentice!Dipper fic. You've probably seen it?

Dot Matrix is a OC Demon owned by StarfleetramboI had written a small sequel one-shot but not many people enjoyed it. LOL so I'm just going to pretend I never wrote it because it sucks. Maybe I'll rewrite a new sequel. Hope you enjoyed it.

* * *

It started when he had first went into Stan Pines mind. He felt the raw, untamed power leaking out of the young meat bag the moment he landed his eye on him. Bill Cipher wasn't one to easily throw out compliments, but he knew a potential pawn when he saw one.

After their initial encounter, Bill kept a close tab on the boy, using his many windows of vision to observe the young pine tree. He could be useful, Bill mused, taking note of the endless insecurities the boy seemed to possess.

Bill made a mental check-list, adding to it every day as he noted down the boy's habits and weaknesses.

He listened to "Disco Girl" by Icelandic pop group BABBA, a Top 40 hit song.

He had a habit of hiding his Big Dipper constellation birthmark on his forehead with his bangs and hat.

When it came to talking to someone about his supernatural discoveries or theories, Bill mused over how the boy's words would be hesitant and his voice would soften, as if he was afraid to speak out. It was quite amusing to see the boy try to hide himself, as if he'd be burned by their stares and words.

Humans were so funny when it came to being judged, Bill thought to himself as he watched the little tree's head bob as he tried to fight sleep.

"Show time!" Bill chirped to himself as the boy fell into his colorless mindscape.

"Whazzat?" Dipper looked around sleepily, drool oozing from the corner of his mouth as his blurred vision took in his surroundings.

"Hiya kid! Lovely day out, isn't it?" Bill floated down to rest above Dipper's bed, where the boy had sprawled over during his fight with sleep.

"Bill! What are you - what do you want?" Dipper drew into himself, instinctively folding his hands together in front of his chest, as if he'd be scorned by Bill's mere presence.

"I've been watching you kid," Bill began, choosing to ignore Dipper's dry mumble of "what a creep" to close his eye, "and I gotta say, I like what I see. You've got great potential, kid. Without any outside help, you were able to perform a spell to access another person's mindscape. Not an easy feat, mind you. You have the natural ability to use magic, Pine Tree. Magic that could be harvested in the best of ways if you had the right teacher to help you grow that potential."

Dipper eyed him, scooting to hit the back of his bedframe, drawing his knees up in an attempt to shield himself. Bill's words sunk into him, making Dipper mentally swell at the mention of natural ability and the fact that it seemed like a remarkable feat that Dipper was able to do that. He knew that he had grasped the concepts of mindscapes and such fairly easily, but…he didn't think Bill would confront him about it.

"What do you mean, right teacher? Like what, you teach me?" Dipper asked, his eyes narrowing as Bill floated down to touch Dipper's mattress. Bill hummed lowly to himself, twirling his cane as he pondered Dipper's question.

"You see Pine Tree, of all the magical creatures in Mystery Falls, I'm probably the only one who has the credibility to be able to teach you magic. The witches and wizards won't do it without the reward of your first born and the gnomes sure can't even get themselves a bride, much less teach someone magic. So you see, I'm really the only one qualified to teach you, Pine Tree." Bill turned around slowly and Dipper made a weird face, wondering what the triangle demon was doing. It slowly dawned on Dipper that Bill was trying to do one of those cool 'turn-my-back-to-you-to-show-I'm-serious' poses he and Mabel always saw the characters on their drama shows do.

Oh my god.

Bill was a dork. Shaking his head, Dipper cleared his throat.

"What's the catch, though? There's always a catch," Dipper spoke, slowly uncurling from his scrunched up position. Bill turned back to face him and seemed to beam. Was he happy?

"No catch, Pine Tree! Just the usual! I'll teach you magic in exchange that you have to be my apprentice! The other demons keep pestering me about why I don't have a apprentice yet. Damn that Matrix…having to rub it in my face," Bill grumbled the last part to himself, Dipper left to stare after the triangle dream demon with a lost expression.

"That's it?" Dipper asked, because that couldn't be it. That was never it. Bill and deals involved pain and double-edged knives that stabbed into you when you least expect it. Deals with Bill involved having your body taken from you because you didn't read the fine-print of his hidden meanings under the secret implications of his choice wording. Deals with Bill ended with regret and self-loathing and this couldn't be it.

"That's it," Bill echoed back and held out his hand expectantly. The one-eyed demon patiently waited for the child to muse the pros and cons of this deal in his head (which he could totally read by the way). He chuckled quietly to himself as he heard the silly cons of this deal. Pine Tree was so funny. He somehow always tied his petty crush for Ice into all of his cons. Huh.

"….You sure? That's it? I just have to be your apprentice?" Dipper looked up from underneath his bangs and the brim of his hat, his eyes wide and open and it was like seeing out of a cleaned window. Bill, if he had a mouth, knew he'd be smiling like a shark.

"Yes, that is it. I just want - need - a apprentice and you can learn magic. You are a natural, Pine Tree, and I'd hate to see it go to waste." Dipper inched his hand out, his fingers trembling slightly as they linked around Bill's black digits. Blue flames licked up the flesh of Dipper's hand and circled around his elbow before disappearing into the colorless world they were in.

"Pleasure doing business with you, kid. We'll have some training tomorrow, when you go to sleep. Don't worry, you'll go to sleep." With the darkening of his tone, Dipper didn't question it. Bill waved and was gone in a flash of yellow light, yelling his usual mantra of gold and universe being and lie and Dipper fell back onto his mattress, suddenly exhausted.

"What have I gotten myself into?" He whispered aloud to himself, throwing his arms over his eyes.

* * *

Bill floated in his mindscape, twirling around in circles. Phase One of "Operation Destroy the Pines Family" was complete!

Bill hadn't been lying when he said he'd be sad to see such natural talent for magic go to waste. He hadn't seen talent in years and he had let that human slip through his fingers. What a regret. With Dipper as his apprentice, the boy was now magically bound to him. He was under Bill's control. Bill could harness his magic and -

Bill stopped his excited thoughts, deciding to leave the planning for later on. For now, he decided to go see how his enemies dreams were going.

* * *

Weeks passed with each night, Dipper meeting Bill in his mindscape to learn about the basics and history behind magic. As Bill said, "To know something inside and out, you have to know the origin of it. Only then can you fully curse the creator of it for ever creating it." Dipper had to admit, Bill was a pretty good teacher. He was patient and learned to teach to Dipper's way of learning. When the two had discovered that Dipper was more of a hands-on type of learner, Bill seemed more than delighted to show Dipper examples and walk him through each spell by hand movement, design, and pronunciation.

BIll wasn't kidding when he said Dipper was a natural. In the few weeks Bill had been teaching Dipper, he had already jumped from basics to intermediate spell casting. What would take the usual human years to master, Pine Tree had in just a few short hours of the night for a handful of weeks.

Bill was impressed.

"Good job Pine Tree. Soon you'll be able to do the teeth-pulling without having to use an incantation!" Bill chirped from his spot floating around the child's head. Dipper looked up with sparkling eyes and a beaming smile and something inside Bill tightened.

"You think? Oh man, it'd be funny to see the look on Gideon's face if I did that!" Dipper laughed and sat down on the ground of the forest BIll had created, trying to catch his breath. Bill hummed and floated around the child's head again, fingering his bowtie as he stared down at the boy.

"That's it for tonight, Pine Tree. See you tomorrow," Bill suddenly demised and before Dipper could even utter a sound, was thrown out of the mindscape and Bill was left alone.

"That's strange," Bill spoke aloud to himself and conjured an image of Dipper smiling at him. Bill's eye narrowed and he leaned closer to the image. "What…what is this feeling?"

It was like he didn't want that accomplished smile to be turned to anyone else.

* * *

"So Pine Tree, want to tell me what happened?" Bill looked expectantly towards his young apprentice, who merely tried to hide his face behind his hat.

"Pine Tree, now," Bill snapped and with a wave of his hand, the hat was gone and the bruises taking up most of Dipper's face was clear as day. Dipper turned his head way, staring at the ground as Bill gave a grunt.

"Someone sure messed your face up," Bill spoke and hovered closer, expecting his student's face. His right eye was half-closed with a black eye, the discolored skin stretching to his temple and his nose, which was swollen red and had tiny cuts littering the bridge of the cartilage and his temple. His lip was busted, the top split open and the corner swollen painfully. He had a nasty cut running along his left cheek, the flesh around it pulsating and flared.

"…I don't want to talk about it," Dipper mumbled as best as he could, still avoiding eye contact. Bill hummed, waving his tiny hands along the ruined flesh of his students face. Dipper winced and blue flames flared up, licking at the tender skin and making the young boy sigh. As Bill soothed the wounds down to a dull twinge, he touched at the memories of his apprentice, his eye bleeding red as the images of an unknown group of teenagers cornering his student in a alley while the boy had been in town to the library.

"No practice tonight," Bill spoke stiffly and Dipper just looked up at him and it was all wrong and Bill quickly disappeared, his coloring bleeding red and black as he tore through the mindscape, hunting for the little bastards that dared to use a baseball bat against his student's body.

* * *

"This is becoming a problem," Bill sighed to himself, looking at the bloody mess around him. The group of teenagers that had decided that Pine Tree was easy pickings had stupidly stayed together for a sleepover. Stupid for them, easy for Bill.

He floated over a detached arm of a twitching teen's body and moved to slip back into his own mindscape, finding no amusement in watching the mother of one of the teen's coming into their bedroom to find the teenagers in comatose like states.

No amusement at all.

Bill twirled his cane, tapping his top hat repeatedly as he thought to himself.

The moment he had seen the bruises on Pine Trees' face, he had wanted to rip the town apart. He wondered why, though. He, himself, had thrown the boy down a flight of stairs and had stabbed the boy's arms with forks. Pain was funny, he found it funny.

Why had seeing someone else cause his Pine Tree pain not funny? Why did he want to murder every single human being in the town of Gravity Falls for not stopping the pain from befalling his student?

"Maybe I should go talk to Matrix about this… He's had a student longer," the dream demon decided and left in a pop.

* * *

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Bill spoke as he smashed the tea cup into tiny shards, restoring it and smashing it over again.

Dot Matrix, sitting opposite with his own apprentice standing silently below him, merely watched with a half-lidded eye.

"Uh-huh, and what was supposed to happen?" The square demon asked.

"I was supposed to use the boy's power to murder his entire family and then branch off into my other evil plans of taking over Gravity Falls and this wasn't supposed to happen!" The tea cup shattered again and the apprentice, a blond boy with emotionless eyes, merely stepped out of the way from the raining shards.

"I feel protective of the boy! I nearly destroyed the lives of these stupid meat lumps for hurting my Pine Tree! I shouldn't feel protective of the child, it goes against everything I've planned! He's just supposed to be pawn, not an actual apprentice! This ruins everything!"

Dot, brushing some shards from his student's hair, stared blankly at the triangle demon.

"Give up on those stupid plans, Cipher. It won't work," Dot finally responded and Bill hissed like a cat.

"Shut up you out-dated floppy disk! Coming to you was a waste of time!" With a pop, the triangle demon was gone and the square demon was left to clench his fists as his coloring shaded red.

"Not a word," he growled to his apprentice, who was biting his lip.

"Yes…Master Floppy Disk," the boy responded and the square demon exploded.

* * *

"I can keep both plans," Bill muttered to himself, floating back in forth as he waited for Dipper to arrive. "I can kill the Pines and keep Pine Tree as my apprentice. It'll work."

Dipper arrived shortly after Bill had finished talking to himself, his wounds healing and his skin a blotchy mess of blues, purples, yellows, and greens. He gave a wave to Bill, who greeted him by conjuring a seat and table.

"Today, I want you to try and summon someone into this mindscape. It can be anyone you want," Bill instructed and sat down on the chair, observing. Dipper tilted his head to the side, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to figure out who to summon.

The young boy closed his eyes and held his hands out in front of him, mumbling to himself under his breath. Magic circled around his feet and Bill watched with content as Gideon popped up before them, the shorter boy's eyes wide as he took in the two before him.

"What in heavens' name is going on?" Gideon squeaked before Bill waved his hand, the boy popping away again.

"Good job Pine Tree," Bill patted his head and Dipper blushed slightly, looking down as he pulled his hat over his face.

Yes, Bill thought to himself as he began to cast spells at Dipper to deflect, he could keep both plans.

* * *

I had written a small sequel one-shot but not many people enjoyed it. LOL so I'm just going to pretend I never wrote it because it sucks. Maybe I'll rewrite a new sequel. Hope you enjoyed it.


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